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Mission to Madagascar: The Sergeant, the King, and the Slave Trade
by David H Mould
In 1817, a decade after Britain banned the slave trade to its colonies, a 30-year-old East India Company sergeant with no diplomatic training embarked on a risky mission. James Hastie travelled for almost a month from the coast of Madagascar through the tropical rainforest to the central highlands. His mission—to persuade Radama, the young and warlike ruler of the most powerful kingdom on the island, to stop the export of slaves.
Most studies of the slave trade focus on the transatlantic traffic to the United States, the Caribbean and South America. Yet for hundreds of years, a larger trade flourished in the Indian Ocean where Arab traders trafficked their human cargoes from East Africa to the slave markets of Arabia and India.
From Madagascar, slaves were smuggled to the plantations of Mauritius, seized by Britain from France during the Napoleonic Wars. Its governor, the subtle, silver-tongued Robert Townsend Farquhar, was in a tough position, under pressure from London to end the slave trade yet knowing that the island’s economy depended on slave labor. Without the ships to police the sea lanes, he decided that the best strategy was a diplomatic one—to form an alliance with the rising military power in Madagascar.
The relationship between Hastie and Radama would shape the course of history in the southwest Indian Ocean. Hastie lived by his wits as he won the king’s confidence. The intelligent, charming yet ruthless Radama skillfully used the British envoy to assert power over the nobility and his political rivals who profited from the slave trade.
The treaty they forged was a deal with the devil: in return for the slave trade ban, the British trained Radama’s army and supplied muskets and gunpowder, allowing the king to expand his dominions, while turning a blind eye to the internal slave trade. Hastie became the British agent in Madagascar, and a trusted advisor to Radama, accompanying him on his military campaigns and introducing social reforms, until his untimely death in 1826.
Mission to Madagascar is based on Hastie’s unpublished journals, one of them recently discovered, and other primary sources, including letters and political and military dispatches. The journals from 1817 to 1825, archived in Mauritius, London, and the U.S., weave a narrative of hazardous travel, byzantine court intrigue and colonial geopolitics, and offer the most comprehensive early 19th century account of Madagascar, its landscape, crops, industry, commerce, culture, and inhabitants.
David became fascinated by Madagascar’s history and culture after making five trips between 2014 and 2017 for a UNICEF research project. Unable to travel for more than two years because of COVID, he decided he wanted to tell someone else’s travel story. He describes his research on Hastie as “like a large jigsaw puzzle, where the pieces never exactly fit” but ultimately “a thrilling and rewarding historical journey.” This is the first biography of a man whom Sir Mervyn Brown, a former UK ambassador and historian of Madagascar, described as “one of the most important and attractive figures in the history of Anglo-Malagasy relations.”
April 2023
April started with a bang: Cameron Alam’s debut novel Anangokaa was published on April 3, and has sold out in North America. If you’re waiting on a copy they are shipping as we write. Here’s the latest review.
That same week, Melanie Bianchi (author of one of our best- selling books, The Ballad of Cherrystoke and Other Stories), Pete Kosky, and Elizabeth presented their collaboration on Rewriting the Ballad Narrative in Appalachian Literature at Booktenders, in Barboursville, and the Kanawha County Public Library. Thanks to all who came and hosted, but especially to Buddy, the Booktenders dog.
We have a definite musical theme this month: Kate Mueser, author of The Girl With Twenty Fingers was interviewed for Californians in Germany about ex-pat life, Mozart, Munich, and writing while having small children to tend to.
Our next book is out on Saturday, April 29: The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York, by the eminent scholar Joseph Horowitz. Gustav and Alma Mahler’s marriage was famous; so why turn to fiction? The introduction to the novel will tell you, as will this article . Love Mahler’s music, and want to know what goes best with the book? We have a soundtrack with a listening guide. Joseph has had a few events this month about the book, in New York and online; he was interviewed for the Colorado Mahler Fest, and on Saturday he’s the guest on the Mahler Foundation’s Mahler Hour.
Speaking of new books, all newsletter subscribers receive 20 percent off all pre-orders. Up next we have The Flounder by John Fulton, A People Without Shame by Patrick Colm Hogan, and Mission to Madagascar by David H. Mould.
In addition to publication day for The Marriage, Saturday is also Independent Bookstore Day. Here’s your reminder that the best way to get our books on the shelves of your local bookstores is to go in and ask them to stock our titles. And please, stay away from Amazon.
See ya’ll next month.
March 2023
March was fast!
Mid-month we were delighted to be invited to have a stall at the Celtic Village at Charleston’s seventh annual Celtic Calling. It was a somewhat different experience compared with anything we have attended so far, with a whole lot of tartan and a whole lot of bagpipes, but Blackwater Press was received exceptionally well and we sold a good many books.
We introduced our new tote bags (US only, for now) at the event, thanks to our City of Charleston grant. Aren’t they pretty? For $9.49 only!
On Monday April 3 Cameron Alam’s much-anticipated Anangokaa will be published. Check out the latest review here, order here, and read her blog post on the inspiration for her novel.
On Tuesday April 4, Joseph Horowitz is reading from his forthcoming novel, The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York at the Argento Music Project in New York. Go, if you can, and pre-order it if you can’t.
On Thursday April 6, Melanie McGee Bianchi will be in conversation with award-winning banjo player and author Pete Kosky and our very own Elizabeth about the ballad narrative in Appalachian literature, at 5.30pm at Booktenders in Barboursville, WV. The program will repeat the next day at noon, at the main branch of the Kanawha County Public Library in Charleston.
Check out the latest review of The Ballad of Cherrystoke here.
And if that wasn’t enough, we have two books coming out in May: The Flounder by John Fulton and A People Without Shame by Patrick Colm Cogan, as well as one in June: Mission to Madagascar: The Sergeant, the King, and the Slave Trade by David H. Mould.
And Kate Mueser recently interviewed her heroine, Sarah Johnson, for Books By Women.
We’re introducing a standing 20% for pre-orders for all newsletter subscribers! Spread the word: don’t let your friends miss out on good literature!
Peace and love.
On Writing
by Cameron Alam
Once upon a time, I thought historical fiction was written the way a house is built, brick by brick, word by word, the author using her mortar of craft to adhere words together into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into chapters as the story is formed. When I sat down to write my novel and thought I might find comfort building up a story from stacks of research, my actual experience was… uncomfortable. Those first bricks were heavy. With glistening brow I laid them down, used a level, repositioned them, made them straight, spread on mortar, added more. The work felt tedious. When I paused and stepped back to observe my early writing, what I saw was as dense as a brick wall.
I wasn’t the only one. When I handed my first chapter to a trusted friend, she returned after reading it and said, “I cried with joy, because you are writing your book!” And then she delivered the critique I had asked for. The scene felt compressed, condensed like a short story might be, as though I had bound my sentences together tight so as not to waste my readers’ time. “Waste our time!” she urged. “Allow your words to take up space.”
For a while after her observation, I soaked in hot baths in place of writing. I was intimidated by the thought of my words taking up space. During one of those contemplative baths, while I was lost in steam, I heard a voice. Not the voice of one of my children searching for me, nor my husband wondering when dinner would be ready. Another voice, just as palpable. I recognized it immediately, as though it belonged to a kindred spirit. It was the voice of my protagonist’s older brother. He wasn’t talking to me. He was simply talking…and on and on. I wondered if he had been waiting for someone all this time. Or if his words had been echoing in the ether over the past two centuries and in my meditative state I had picked up some obscure signal which allowed me to listen in. I wondered why it wasn’t her, my central character, the young woman I was aching to know, to better understand as I observed her through the obscuring mist of generations. Where was her voice? Was it as bound-up as mine? Whatever the reason for her silence, once I heard her brother’s voice, I could not unhear it. It filled me with wonder. And answers. Here was someone unapologetically willing to take up more than a little space with his own words.
When I took up my pen again and returned to writing with fervor, I knew historical fiction need not be written like a house is built. It need not begin ground-up from research, in a methodical fashion, brick by brick, cemented together for stability with no room for the author’s own voice. I felt considerably more like a sculptor or a whittler, considering a lump of clay or a piece of wood, than a builder. I could see the outline of the form hidden inside. I could hear it, thanks to my protagonist’s older brother. And once that hidden form was revealed to me, she finally revealed herself too, my protagonist, as though she had been waiting for that moment when I would push aside the sense of obligation to build brick by brick and lose all concern for wasted time. A writer’s words, my words, I learned through what she revealed to me, are the gift we are given to draw life from story.
February 2023
Hello, dear subscribers. We’re repeating ourselves here, but February has been as action-packed as usual!
Our next books are out in April: Anangokaa by Cameron Alam on April 3, and Joseph Horowitz’s The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York on April 29. Both are available for pre-order, and will be strong additions to the collections of any historical fiction fans.
The Marriage comes with some bonus material. Gustav Mahler was a major character in early twentieth-century music, and his time in New York was remembered vividly by musicians who worked with him there. These recordings, made in 1964, are available as extra contents, along with a listening guide. Since recording technology was not available in Mahler’s lifetime, we’ll never know how a performance he led sounded, but we can get close. Dmitri Mitropoulos’ 1940 recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D Major, “Titan,” with the Minneapolis Symphony is regarded as stylistically close to how Mahler directed his own music, and we hope you enjoy listening and reading about it.
Now, time for some bragging:
The Historical Novel Society recently published reviews of two our titles: Anangokaa and The Stone Maidens.
We also learned that our North American distributor, Small Press Distribution, has recognized two of our books: Ma Chère Maman—Mon Cher Enfant was on their January bestseller list, and The Girl with Twenty Fingers was chosen for their SPD Recommends list. We couldn’t be happier.
Speaking of The Girl with Twenty Fingers, check out Kate’s video about how she managed to write a novel with three very small children.
Some other news:
We are delighted by how quickly our reputation has grown, but with that comes a massive load of manuscripts to consider. We’ve decided rather than getting any further behind our ideal response time, we shall stop accepting new manuscripts until further notice. We will make an announcement once submissions are open again. Of the problems we could have, this is a good one!
And we leave with this exciting news for next month: we’re trialing free shipping for the whole of March on domestic orders (US & UK). Simply use the code freemarch23 at checkout and a ‘free shipping’ option will pop up. If you were waiting for an excuse to order, wait no longer!
January 2023
Without standing up, he lifted the book from a stack on a chest next to his chair. “What a coincidence. I’m sure you know that today would have been Mozart’s birthday: January 27, 1756.”
The Girl with Twenty FingersHello all, and congratulations on making it through January – it wasn’t too bad, was it? We hope you’ve been eating lots of chocolate (or not, if your resolution dictates!) and treating yourselves to the steamiest baths. If there’s one thing winter’s good for it’s snuggling up with a book, and Kate Mueser’s gorgeous debut novel – The Girl with Twenty Fingers, released on Mozart’s birthday – is exactly the sort of hygge read you need 🙂 .
“A must read for fans who love stories about secrets, family and second chances.”
Kerry Lonsdale
Wall Street Journal, Washington Post
& Amazon Charts Bestselling AuthorCheck out lovely Kate talking about the book.
FYI European customers – we ship our books from the UK, which is having a bit of a meltdown with international post following a cyber attack. We can still ship orders (and have been doing so!), but for the time being it may be a little more expensive as we use a courier instead of the Royal Mail. Hopefully all resolved soon!
What else has been going on? Oh yes, we have a new member of Blackwater – Dr Luca Guariento – who hates big introductions so we won’t give him one. Luca will be taking over a lot of our typesetting and e-publishing and many other things. Welcome, Luca! We’re delighted to have you and we’ll leave it at that! That’s now one partner in West Virginia, one in Italy, and two in Glasgow – Glasgow is winning!
This month also saw The Stone Maidens author Ioulia Kolovou feature in the University of Glasgow’s Creative Conversations series with author of Hear No Evil, Sarah Smith. It was a fascinating discussion and great to see so many attendees picking up Ioulia’s book courtesy of John Smith’s Bookshop – so many I couldn’t get a picture of the table in time! Here’s one of the venue instead – not bad at all!
And since we’re on a Glasgow theme, we’ll round off by mentioning that our books are now getting stocked in Glasgow Libraries, which we’re over the moon about. Another step up for our little company, in what is shaping up to be a pretty exciting year!
December 2022
Well, first and foremost: MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone! We hope you are having a lovely festive season. Some of you may be without water or electricity due to the recent weather emergencies; some may be affected by the emotional overload these holidays bring; others may be struggling for a million different reasons. Let’s seize this opportunity to take a moment and reflect on how things could be worse; let’s appreciate what we do have, and should not take for granted. Whether it’s a roof over our heads, a cup of hot coffee, a change of clean clothes, a snuggly puppy, or dear ones to hug.
Never a dull moment here at Blackwater Press; in fact, we have some super exciting news to share with you.
Our little independent press has just been awarded the Small Business Investment Grant by the Mayor of Charleston, West Virginia! More than seventy small businesses applied and we are beyond thrilled that we were among those selected for our contribution to “economy, culture, and character – while also providing unique experiences and fostering relationships within our community,” in Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin’s words. As a small business, this really gets us dreaming of new horizons and possibilities. We already have a plan, and we cannot wait to put it into action!
To help us out and to learn about publishing from the inside, from January 8 we’ll have an intern, Ryann Province. Let’s all give her a virtual round of applause! Ryann is a freshman majoring in creative writing and video production. This internship has been possible thanks to our recent partnership with Marshall University (Huntington, WV), to whom we are very grateful.
To add to the excitement, we are very proud to be the press that publishes Joseph Horowitz’s first novel: The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York. Horowitz is an award-winning cultural historian and author of several monographs and books about music, as well as being a concert producer and radio broadcaster – and more. Read all about his novel in his own words.
This is the final newsletter of the year, and after a very productive year and a steep (if rewarding) learning curve for us all on several levels, we are so looking forward to next year’s titles:
The Girl with Twenty Fingers by Kate Mueser
Mission to Madagascar by David H. Mould
Lips That Touch by Zoë Strachan
A People Without Shame by Patrick Colm Hogan
The Boy from Nowhere by Richard Robison
Anangokaa by Cameron Alam
The Marriage by Joseph Horowitz
The Flounder by John Fulton
Guilt by Carter Taylor Seaton
Symbiosis by Milagros Lasarte
Three Lives of St Ciarán by Inés Gregori Labarta
While Dragging Our Hearts Behind Us by Boni Thompson
The Medicament Report by Eric PercakAaaaand that’s a wrap! We hope you enjoy the rest of the Christmas holidays…see you in 2023! Our warmest wishes for a happy new year when it comes.
November 2022
It’s November, and the biggest, most seasonal, news is that our Small Business Weekend/Civilized Saturday/Cyber Monday/Not Black Friday (!) sale continues through this Sunday, December 4. All of our books are 25 percent off. FYI: books make excellent gifts 🙂 .
The next bit of good news is that Elizabeth Auld’s long-awaited translation of Lucien and Louise Durosoir’s war-time correspondence has been published: Ma Chère Maman – Mon Cher Enfant. This is the world’s first English edition of their letters and has a little something for everyone. World War I, music, the complexities of a mother-son relationship during one of the darkest periods in human history… We are really happy with this one.
John went to The Greenock Writers’ Club and held an interactive session on editing; thank you very much to everyone there and we’re very excited to see the writing that comes out of that talented cohort. John is looking forward to returning to discuss the trials and tribulations of small press publishing next year.
Oh, and there is the small matter of our next book: The Girl With Twenty Fingers by the incredible Kate Mueser (link to her page).
This will go on sale Monday, December 5. Why? It’s the anniversary of Mozart’s death in 1791. You don’t need to know that to enjoy the book, but it’s a nice little factoid and helps Elizabeth justify all her music degrees. We’ll publish it on January 27, Mozart’s birthday. Read more about the inspiration for the novel here, in our latest blog post by Kate.
And here’s a wee reminder this busy book-buying season: Amazon Kills. Our distributors demand that our books are available there, because in order to reach the most readers they must be, but please, try to buy our books (and any other books) elsewhere! You can support local bookshops (US and UK) through other platforms like Bookshop.org and IndieBound. We all have to work together to keep small publishers and smaller shops alive. We’re likely preaching to the choir, but tell your friends! Our friends at IndieBound have this to say.
And on that note, if you want to see our books in your local shops, the best way is to go into the shops and ask. Demand leads to supply. All of our titles are listed on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes and Noble, so please do leave a review!
And here’s a turkey called Ellie that chased Elizabeth across a parking lot. See you next month.
Twenty Fingers for One Dollar
By Kate Mueser
“So, is it autobiographical?”
Those who know me well will ask that question when they read my debut novel, The Girl with Twenty Fingers, about an American used-to-be pianist in Germany who plays Mozart’s works for piano four hands with an elderly German man.
“Absolutely not!” I would reply.
“But Kate,” they would argue, “You also used to be a pianist and lived in Germany.”
“True,” I would have to concede. “But unlike Sarah, my protagonist, I never bombed a performance of Mozart’s D Minor Concerto. In fact, many years ago, I did play his C Major Concerto with an orchestra and had no major complaints from the audience.”
“But didn’t you once tell me about playing the piano with an elderly German?”
Ah yes. The initial inspiration for The Girl with Twenty Fingers was indeed rooted in reality, even if the book itself is fiction.
When I was twenty-two years old and moving back to Bonn from the US after spending several months there the previous year, I needed a place to stay temporarily while I looked for an apartment. Through the pastor of a local church, I was connected with an elderly couple at the far edge of town, whom I’ll call Herr and Frau S. The pastor knew I had a degree in piano performance, and the couple had a grand piano and an extra room. It was a perfect match.
I arrived late one January night, stepping out of the taxi with a large suitcase holding all of my belongings, jetlagged from the long flight. The winter chill felt inhospitable after my time in temperate California; the snow on the ground was not fluffy and picturesque but clumped in dirty, icy chunks. A pang of fear and regret struck me: Was I doing the right thing, coming back to this faraway place to start a life? Calling the taxi to take me straight back to the airport where I could catch the next flight home suddenly seemed a lot more appealing.
Thankfully, Herr and Frau S. welcomed me warmly, offered me a comfortable room upstairs, and insisted I share meals with them. Nevertheless, it seemed like there was an insurmountable gap between me and Herr S. in particular — not least the multiple generations that divided us. My German was not yet fluent; he was difficult to understand and acted gruff at times. I was a stranger in a country that was still strange to me.
It took a few days before my fingers thawed enough to try out the piano. While it was not nearly as spectacular as the Bechstein grand in my book, it was a sturdy instrument with a friendly sound.
“Mozart wrote many lovely works for piano four hands,” Herr S. said after I’d spent a few minutes coaxing contiguous notes out of my memory and the keyboard. “Perhaps you’d like to play a few together?”
I knew the Mozart sonatas for twenty fingers quite well; in high school I’d spent several summers at the San Francisco Conservatory working on them as part of their chamber music program for young musicians. As Herr S.’s houseguest, I couldn’t say no.
Our first attempts were awkward. Piano for four hands is an intimate and athletic undertaking. It’s not like playing with a clarinetist or cellist — someone who hides in the crook of the grand piano, someone with whom you share the occasional nod. Piano duets mean bumping bottoms and rubbing elbows; they require inhaling your partner’s aftershave while you overlap your hands to reach the opposite register. Mozart wrote those sonatas for himself and his sister: The two of them were conveniently small in stature and obviously well acquainted with each other. With Herr S., sitting side by side at his grand piano seemed decidedly less natural.
He was, I had deduced while living in his house, well over ninety. His fingers bore the stiffness of age, but he played remarkably well and was familiar with the repertoire. After a few Mozart sessions, his gruffness waned and it became apparent that he was deeply enjoying not just making music, but making it together. It must have been years since he had played with anyone.
What Herr S. didn’t know was that my relationship with music was complicated at the time. My plan to become a concert pianist had not panned out. The classical music world had demanded more than I was able to give and one degree did not suffice. I was angry at my instrument, and I didn’t know what to do with my life. (Yes, ok — admittedly not unlike my protagonist Sarah.)
At times, we would nail the brutal Mozartian runs and bring those piercing second movement melodies to sing. But there were also stumbles on the scales, the pianissimos that didn’t sound at all, the rests that were miscounted. For mistakes like those, I would have been yelled at at music school. With Herr S., there was plenty of grace. Experiencing his joy in the imperfect music we made was refreshing and healing.
After two weeks or so in the spare room upstairs, I signed a lease on an apartment a block away from the center of Bonn and was looking forward to getting out of the distant suburbs and into the city. Before I packed up my suitcase and stripped the bed, I asked Herr S. whether I could pay him for room and board. A fee hadn’t been part of the arrangement, but I didn’t want to commit any cultural faux pas.
“Yes,” he said, “Yes, you can.”
For a split second, I was concerned. Had I misunderstood something? Should I have paid in advance?
“It will cost you one American dollar,” he said stoically.
Relief! I was glad my language skills hadn’t failed me after all, but still unsure whether he was joking or serious. Fortunately, I still had a green dollar in my wallet, which was otherwise populated by colorful euro notes.
He accepted my dollar with a kind laugh and asked, almost bashfully, “Maybe you’d like to keep playing together?”
As so, for the following year, I hopped on the bus every two weeks for the long trek out to the edge of town. Frau S. baked a different cake each time and Herr S. and I would play Mozart until we were out of breath and then chat over coffee, creamer, and homemade dessert.
I never found out what Herr S. did during the Nazi period. Because he is not Otto Steinmann and I am not Sarah Johnson, Herr S. gave me no past to unravel. Instead, we talked about Bonn, that little city on the Rhine that played such a big role as a Cold War capital and reinvented itself after Reunification. About raising kids and not seeing grandkids often enough. About rising prices and the nice little bakery around the corner, the only one for kilometers.
My visits with Herr and Frau S. became for me a window — however unsettling — into the future: We all get older; we all eventually get old, as unimaginable as that was at twenty-two. Our meetings were also a window into a culture and a language that I was only beginning to get to know. Two people may not be a whole country, but each country is comprised of single souls. Now, twenty years later, I am married to a German and mother to three more and have since become more German than I’d ever planned to.
Most importantly, my friendship with Herr and Frau S. taught me to see music more simply. It could be something to casually share with others; neither was it confined to a practice cubicle nor was it worthless without a stage. Music could be a hobby that could last forever, well into old age. I did not have to become music’s eternally bitter divorcée at twenty-two. And maybe music and I didn’t have to become lovers at all. Maybe we could just stay friends. Forever, like Herr S.
After about a year of biweekly bus trips to the grand piano on the outskirts of Bonn, I started working more, picking up additional classes as an English teacher. I could no longer keep up the commitment. At the same time, Herr S.’s health declined. While we kept in touch, the Mozart scores were closed and shelved. It was time to move on.
When Herr S. passed away several years later, the pastor who’d brought us together asked me to play something at his funeral. I chose one of the Mozart sonatas for four hands that we had played together in his living room but performed only the primo part. The piece was half empty, void of its roots. The secondo solo bits were replaced with gaping holes. Sometimes silence speaks louder than music.
October 2022
October 17 was the publication of Ioulia Kolovou’s novel The Stone Maidens, followed by a reading and discussion with Zoë Strachan at John Smith’s bookshop at the University of Glasgow. Thanks to all who attended this great event—our first in-person launch! And to who all who have purchased copies: it’s a gripping multi-generational saga of how lives and families become intertwined, set in a changing Argentina.
Elizabeth represented us at the West Virginia Book Festival October 21-22. The vendors’ hall was packed with authors, other presses, and book-related businesses. Nearly everyone who stopped commented on how lovely our books are (yes, thank you Eilidh!) and sales were high. So high that Tuscawilla: Stories of a Farm and I Piped, That She Might Dance are now out of stock in the US. A new print run has been ordered, and there’s always the ebook version of I Piped, That She Might Dance in the meantime.
We were delighted to learn that Tuscawilla: Stories of a Farm is being used as a textbook for the Future Generations University, located in Pendleton County, WV. Says Strategy and Impact Officer Jenny Totten, “We’re just learning that there are some educational materials that don’t exist, and this book is perfect for our masters in community development program.” Jane Cary had wanted to be teacher; we like to think she would be proud that her book and her knowledge were being used in this way.
Do you want to use one of our titles for a class? Just let us know and we’ll make sure you get enough copies!
We recently collaborated with old-time musician Pete Kosky on two new ballads to complement Melanie McGee Bianchi’s The Ballad of Cherrystoke and Other Stories. Check them out here and here, and then read the article Elizabeth wrote on ballads and tradition for LitHub.
If you’re a user of Goodreads or Storygraph, our books are now listed, thanks to our new intern. Please go review them! The more reviews the better! Tell your friends!
And, we’re sorry to announce that US publication of Ma Chère Maman—Mon Cher Enfant: The Letters of Lucien and Louise Durosoir, 1914-1919 is delayed, but the UK publication is still on schedule for November 11. This blog post by the translator and friend of the Durosoir family, Elizabeth Auld, is an excellent introduction to this fascinating and moving collection.